WAR'S SURGICAL WONDERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 141, 4 February 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAR'S SURGICAL WONDERS.

MARVELLOUS RECOVERIES FROM DREADFUL WOUNDS. Few things in the war present a more striking contrast than the almost magical manner in which our wounded heroes to-day are being healed of even the most terrible wounds compared with the poor fellows who got manned when fighting their country's battles long ago. The treatment meted out. to the wounded in the so-called "good old days" wa« the meet barbarous thing imaginable. Imagine the torture of having boiling oil poijred into an open wound. Yet' up to the beginning of the sixteenth century boiling oil was considered the best dressing for gunshot wounds. It must be remembered, 100 that gunshot wounds in those days were hideous, made as they were by a big, roughly-cast leaden bullet fired at short range. The shock to the system was also far greater than that caused by the modern high velocity bullet, which in most cases makes a clean puncture, although, of course, these wounds become ugly if they arc not dressed properly and at once. Another barbarous remedy was that used for any injury which required cauterizing. It was not until the beginning of the last century that the evils of the remedies mentioned were realised. The badly-wounded Tommy in the old days hadn't a dog's chance to recover. In the Crimea until the : -t----vent of Florence Nightingale and her hcoric band of nurses, the conditions for succouring the wounded were a d sgraee to the nation, and William Howard Russell didn't forget to let the world know it.

THE BETTER CHANCE OF RECOVERY. To-day, happily, the wounded warrior has a better chance to recover from practically any type of wound than any soldier ever had before. All Ihe accumulated science and skill of the surgical and medical fraternity of

the warring nat'ons iis being concentrated on the men who have been battered and maimed in battle. Marvels of surgery are being performed daily by these cool-headed, clever-handed doctors, whose wonderful skill and nerve in carrying through operations of the most appalling nature is in most cases crowned with complete success.

The war has furnished at once a test and a triumph for the science of healing. Within a few hours of receiving their wounds on the field of battle the soldiers 'of to-day are being cared for. and in many cn<es cured, in the most elaboratelv equipped of British hospitals.

''lf you want to see nvracles." said the chief medical officer of one of these large beneficent institutions to a London Press representative recently, "I can show you some here—miracles of modern surgery." And lie wa.s as good as his word.

Hobbling along one of the wide corridors of the hospital came a soldier — one of the heroes of Hill GO, where he had ''got it badly," as he expressed it. The doctor expla ned h s case to the Pressman, and it wa.s a most extraordinary one. Re had been hurried over from France in a dying condition, with the abdomen and intestines terribly shattered by a shell, liy all the tenets of surgery lie had not half an hour to live. Hut within twenty minutes of his arrival at the hospital he had been operated upon. A new bladder and other organs were actually made for him, and from that moment his progress was slow but sure. He has since been discharged from the hospital, fceling wonderfully lit.

CASES OF NATURAL HEALING. Fven more remarkable, however—and the doctor was quick to adm t it —were the cases of natural healing. There were seve'a l men—two nl them just back from the Dardanelles—whom a bullet had completely traversed and yet left organically unharmed. In one instance the bullet had entered through the neck, missed the main carotid arteries, pierced both lungs, escaped the aorta, and emerged under the arm. With the exception of the trifling flesh wounds and of the punctured lungs (of which a little care had naturally to be taken at lirst). the patvnt was undamaged. A week or two saw h 111 well again!

The astonishing feature of this case, as the doctor pointed out, was the fact that the bullet had, as it seemed, deliberately described a curve round the danger zone. Xo surgeon in the world he declared, could have directed a curette along the course taken bv this bullet.

LUNG WOUNDS NOT NECESSAR JLY FATAL.

Bullet wounds of the lung provided no large vessels arc touched are seldom fatal in man or beast. A couple of rcmjikable instances of these injuries that occurred during the Boer War will prove of interest at the present time. Two officers were reconnoitring, when one suddenly leapt off his horse with a forcible exclamation to the effect that he had been hit by a bullet in the foot. Hi.s friend likewise dismounted and proceeded to t;ike off the wounded man's boot and apply "first

aid"; both officers then remounted and rode liaek to camp. On the way the officer who had helped his friend «omplained of great pain in his chest, and before camp was reached he had fainted away. It subsequently transpired that a bullet had passed through his lung, and this must have occurred at the same instant his friend was hit in the foot, but in the excitement the pain was not felt. This officer completely recovered The other instance occurred in the person of a priv.-.te who was .vounded by a "pom-pom" shell, the diameter of which is 1J in. The missile perforated the left side of the chest, carrying away with it several pieces of ribs, and destrov ng the greater portion of the left lung.

Aftor several operations the man left hospital and went on a globe-trotting tour, during which, with the object of turning an honest penny, he exhibited himself as a "freak." Ultimately, he arrived in Hong-Kong, where, for some reason or other, he managed to get gaoled. Later, he entered the local hospital for / further surgical operation, during which, some dead pieces of rib were removed, and ultimately he was discharged cured. SILVER RIBS. It was in the South African War, too, that a poor Tommy was severely wounded, and lost most of his ribs, which were replaced by a steel jacket which allowed him to do l glit work. Then a London hospital took him in hand and provided him with a set of silver ribs.

With a pair of artificial fret to replace those that had been amputated at Charing Cross Hospital, a young soldier went out again into the world last spring to earn his lifing. Had frostbite in Flanders had sent him home crippled to the operating table, but Charing Cross, as well as saving life, gave him artificial feet, and -lie man was a cheerful sold.or.

He has grown so accustomed to his new extremities and uses them so dexterously that he has several times bom invited by recruiting sergeants in the Strand to jom the Army. He is willing enough to smile over Jiis exper - ences in Flanders as well a.s in the Strand, but says that the sergeants look somewhat astonished when he tells tltem that he lias already done a bit in France. The story, which is true, says much for modern surgery and surgical appliances and for the cheerful soldier. A Paris doctor has just performed a successful operation by means of the new system of radiological localisation. It consisted in the extraction of a shrapnel bullet from the rich turiclc of a wounded soldier's heart. The precision of this method ha.s enabled a number of other wonderful operations to be performed, including the extraction of buttons and coins embedded in the lungs, the brain, and the liver.

The doctor who is the inventor of the radio-fturgical compass employed in the new method lost an arm some time ago as the result of accidents during his experiments.

RECOVERY FROM BRAIN WOUNDS

One of the most remarkable and humane features of modern warfare is that bullet wounds of the- brain are no longer nece.v.arily fatal, as they almost invariably were in the days of the Martini and " Brown Bess." In such wounds bra n matter may protrude from entrance and exit apertures, a phenomenon apparently due not no much to the direct action of the bullet as to subsequent pressure set up by pathological changes. A soldier wr.lket' four miles after the battle of Magersfontein with brain substance emerging from each side of his head, yet this man made quite a <:oud recovery. There have been a number of peculiarly interest ng "head" cases in the present war. One soldier had a large hole driven in the frontal region (f bin scalp. The wound was cleaned up. a number of bone fragments were removed. and several weeks later the man was stated to be progressing favourablv.

A gentleman describing tlie work at the Australian Voluntary Hospital, Boulogne, quotes the ease of a soldier, the vortex of whose skull had been shattered by a glancing wound. There was extensive paralysis of the limbs oil hotli sidis, without eonia. An operation was performed at once, and the removal of the shattered splinters of I one was followed I>y mueh improvement, with every prospect of complete neoverv.

Sergeant Parsons, fornieily a gymnastic instructor at the Brecon depot, attached to the 24th Regiment, South Wales Borderers, who was wounded at the front, returned to Brecon after r;idcrgoing a remarkable and successful hospital treatment. During the fighting in the Till Bassee region Sergeant Parsons was wounded in the skull, and the injury rendered him absolutely deaf and bi nd. On the eleventh day he regained consciousness and underwent a serious operation, as the result of which lie has now regained his sight and hearing. of which facult es lie was deprived for sixteen days.

A LIVING MATtVEL. That men are quickly recovering from wounds which twenty years ago would have proved latal has been witnessed time and again. A case in point is that of I'te. David Crosby, a Liverpool Australian. Crosby bar. been termed a "l : ving marvel" on account of the number and severity of bis wounds. Here is his little lot:—A bayonet wound, eghteen inches long, in the abdomen, shot clean through the groin, shot through the right elbow, a broken wrist, a broken finger, fractured knee, a bullet at present embedded in the chest which can easily be lingered, and a bullet in the liver. Thanks to the indomitable grit and

fine constitution of the plucky young soldier, and to the prompt application of the most modern surgical methods, Crosby is making a safe and speedy recovery, although he has still to undergo two operations. News of an operation unii|ue in the annals of surgery lia.s just been received from Paris. The suture of the spinal cord has been made for the first time, as far as is known in surgery, by Dr. Emil Giron. Describing his achievement in the Academy of Medicine, Dr. Giron said the patient was a soldier who had Iteen hit by shell splinter, which embedded itself in the whole breadth of the vert.bral canal, completely severing the spinal cord. The operation, which was performed in disastrous conditions on the dying man. gave results far beyond anything they were entitled to hope. The man was now able to move his lower limbs and was gradually recovering his sensory powers. The enormous sloughing sore, which normally ought to have killed him in a few days, was healing up. Fever had disappeared and his general condition was good. The subject of one of the most daring surgical operations of the war was recently the hero of an interesting fneideat wh ch took place in a hospital thirty miles from I>ondon during a visit by King George. The soldier is an Australian, who had liretl after having a bullet in his brain, although his injury had depr.vecl him of the power of speech and paralysed one side of his body.

When three of his officers were shot down the Australian climbed out of his trench and carried two of them to safety. He was making a third trip when he was shot. He was brought to England, and the surgeons performed a daring, skilful, intricate operation. The builet was removed from his brain, and he recovered his speech. One day a visitor whose face seemed strangely familiar passed through the ward. The surgeons attended him with marked deference. They pointed with pride to their "show patient." The stranger bent over the cot. " I wish you a speedy recovery. Lieutenant," lie said. "I'm —not—a lieutenant —I'm a —private," said the hero. "You were," said the stranger, "but I have promoted you." It was the King!